With No Ceasefire in Sight, Patriot Missiles are Vital To Ukraine

Donald Trump just announced that the U.S. will be sending much more sophisticated weapons to Ukraine, including Patriot Missile Defence systems. Though Trump had initially slowed down air defence aid to Ukraine (with its last major shipment in January), after weeks of heavy Russian aerial attacks, the administration is making a U-turn.

While not a game-changer in the war in Ukraine, the delivery of Patriot surface-to-air missile systems is by far the most powerful tool Ukraine has to protect its skies from Russian aerial attacks. Without Patriot missile defence systems, Russia can continue its devastating aerial bombardments—not only on major Ukrainian cities but on vital infrastructure, including weapons factories and power plants.

As of 2025, Russian missile strikes had destroyed 80% of Ukraine’s thermal generation capacity, while Ukraine’s most notable hydroelectric power plants had also been damaged. Russia also continues to target Ukraine’s natural gas infrastructure and its energy grids. These attacks don’t just cause blackouts—they risk triggering large-scale industrial disasters, and regional flooding.

Additionally, as Russia has lost a staggering number of troops (reportedly 780,000 have been killed or injured), it has escalated brazen attacks on Ukrainian civilians, which further highlights Ukraine’s need for robust air defence.

Though Ukraine is also dealing with its own fatigue, its ability to shoot down Russian drones and cruise missiles has remained impressive. Ukraine intercepted about 70-80% of Russian cruise missiles in the early part of the war.

And thus far, the Patriot missile system has performed extremely well in Ukraine, defending against Russian-made Kinzhal and Iskander ballistic missiles. The Russians initially boasted that the Kinzhal was impossible to intercept due to its reported speed of up to 7,700 miles per hour (or Mach 10), but Patriot systems in Ukraine have repeatedly proven effective even on hypersonic missiles —going beyond what the Patriot was designed to do. Additionally, when Ukraine deployed a Patriot system near the front line in February of 2024, it shot down more than 10 Russian aircraft in one month.

Ukraine has also managed to thwart attempts to destroy the air defence systems themselves. On June 28^th, 2023, Russia used some of its most advanced and expensive missiles to try to damage Patriot batteries protecting Kiev, but the Patriot system shot down the 34 Iskander and Kinzhal ballistic missiles fired. Ukraine has also found creative ways to protect the Patriot systems—such as by using steel plates on the exterior of the control units of the batteries to protect from missile shrapnel and blasts.

What is the Patriot Missile System?

A Patriot missile system, first deployed in Iraq in Operation Desert Storm in 1991, consists of radar, a control station, a power generator and as many as eight launchers which hold four interceptor missiles. Patriot missiles are uniquely equipped at stopping ballistic missiles in flight—the toughest challenge for any air defence system– as they fly far from the earth’s surface and come down several times faster than the speed of sound to strike their targets. As cruise missiles and drones are slower and fly nearer to the ground, there is more time for air defence missiles systems to hit them out of the sky.

There are two main types of Patriot missile systems that are critical to Ukraine– PAC-2s (which shoot down cruise missiles) and PAC-3s (which shoot down ballistic missiles). PAC-3s are designed to hit to kill, by physically flying into the missiles and destroying explosives and the chemical charges that a missile is carrying, rather than being shot into the sky to explode which might send shrapnel into incoming aircraft. The Patriots are the only air defence missiles systems in the world that have this capability. PAC-3s are also more manoeuvrable than PAC-2s, and much lighter.

The closest air defence systems to Patriot systems that Ukraine has in its arsenal are Soviet era S-200s and S-300s, Norwegian NASAMS, German Iris-Ts, and the French-Italian SAMP/T, a land-based system from Aster. In comparison, to much less costly NASAMS system which can handle cruise missiles, the Patriot system is better equipped to intercept ballistic missile threats.

Though Ukraine has increased its domestic weapons production in the last three years, there is no domestically made equivalent to the Patriot system. Developing these types of systems is time consuming and incredibly expensive, involving testing and debugging, with the physical hardware of the anti-ballistic missiles taking years to build. Building its own domestic and anti-ballistic defence systems is out of Ukraine’s capacity at the moment—and as such, Ukraine has focused on the development of cruise and ballistic missiles–namely the Neptune and Hrim-2 —since the war’s outset. Though these missiles were critical to Ukraine’s Kursk offensive, Zelensky has underscored Ukraine’s need for air defence systems from Western allies.

Is Russia running out of missiles?

Given the scale of Russia’s missile campaign, it remains uncertain if the Kremlin can maintain its current stockpile. Russia has periodically run out of missiles especially during the first year of the war. By 2023 missile stockpiles declined again and Russia began using cheaper drones rather than costly missiles. Since then, Russia has amped up its production of missiles (producing 40-50 Iskanders a month) and turned to North Korea and Iran.

As of early July 2025, Russia has about 300 short-range ballistic missiles—including 250 Iskander missiles and 50 North Korean KN-23 missiles. This still represents a drop from 580 missiles, Russia’s estimated stockpile in May, demonstrating how quickly its stash of missiles depletes.

A costly but vital system

Patriot missiles have played an important role in Ukraine’s defence, intercepting some of Russia’s most expensive and advanced missiles. But operating these Patriot systems requires regular maintenance, trained personnel, and those trained also need to be judicious about when they are used. Just one Patriot interceptor missile reportedly costs $4 million, while the entire Patriot system costs over $1 billion ($400 million on systems hardware of launchers, radar and control units and $700 million on missiles). Ukraine faces challenges in maintaining a stockpile of interceptor missiles and there are logistical challenges of distributing the missiles to Ukraine.

As Patriots are so expensive, they cannot be deployed on a massive scale, and it has been estimated that Ukraine would need 25-30 Patriot systems just to defend its major cities and critical infrastructure.

Though the US has concerns that it may run on out of these Patriot missile systems, it has sold them to other countries (such as Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Romania, Poland, Greece, Spain, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Israel) which could be willing to transfer a few of their reserves to Ukraine.

While the Patriot systems are not a silver bullet in Ukraine’s war with Russia as coverage will be limited, having these systems in place ensures that civilians, and critical infrastructure such as power grids and defence factories are protected. As Russia has no interest in a ceasefire, the Patriot system is a critical tool to ensure Ukraine’s survival.